Michael Ondaatje

Bristling with intelligence and shimmering with romance, this novel tests the boundary between history and myth. Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning The English Patient.

In the Skin of a Lion

Arriving in Toronto in the 1920s from the Canadian wilderness, Patrick Lewis experiences a series of adventures as he makes a living searching for a missing millionaire, tunnels beneath Lake Ontario, and falls in love. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.

A Novel

Sarah Christine Gill

He wanted a book, he wanted meat. If he was going to have to hole up for a few days he wanted chicken and literature.

Gorgeous, cinematic storylines (nuns slipping off aqueducts? in the mist? Big pioneering public works projects? Workers liberation movements, puppet theatre and professional dynamiters?) but not sure they came together in that sublime, elegant way that blew my mind in The English Patient. I got a bit lost in the middle at least and not sure I felt the climactic showdown in the way it was intended. Or maybe that was the point. Unsure! 

Saw it described as a very Canadian novel, true I think! Think he writes people so well though. 

Gorgeous, cinematic storylines (nuns slipping off aqueducts? in the mist? Big pioneering public works projects? Workers liberation movements, puppet theatre and professional dynamiters?) but not sure they came together in that sublime, elegant way that blew my mind in The English Patient. I got a bit lost in the middle at least and not sure I felt the climactic showdown in the way it was intended. Or maybe that was the point. Unsure! 

Saw it described as a very Canadian novel, true I think! Think he writes people so well though. 

Hellboy TCR

Daryl Houston

I've been a little lukewarm on some Ondaatje, but the language in this one -- especially early on -- really did the trick for me, as did the earlier parts of the story, which was fascinating to me. Some of the later bits appealed to me less, but on the whole, this was a good, quick read.

Kaeli Wolf 

Most boring book on the planet Earth. This book had no visible plot, no sequence of characters, nothing interesting. Don't read it, whatever you do.

In the Skin of a Lion

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